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Crises drive us from our comfort
to the edge of vital choice,
children speak the words we’ve hidden,
simple words we’ve failed to voice.

God didn’t create us to sit around waiting to die so we can leave planet Earth and go to Heaven. God created in each of us a unique God-dream for getting more heaven into planet Earth. We need to, in Rebekah Simon-Peter’s words, “Dream like Jesus.”

When the pandemic started escalating in the U.S., I thought without thinking of it through the lens of my privilege. When someone wrote to me and asked why we hadn’t commented on the racism inherent in the spread of the virus, my first thought – I am embarrassed to say and yet readily admit – was, “Why would we do that? Viruses don’t discriminate.”

The coronavirus, the virus that causes the deadly illness called COVID-19, eerily reminds me of when I started as a young minister during the AIDS crisis. The enormity of the pain, grief and anxiety expressed by mourners and the volume of deaths reminds me of those early years.

Mother Earth weeps for her children—
day after day, rain drumming down.
She cleanses herself and cleanses us—

Sermon Video with Bishop Yvette A. Flunder, City of Refuge UCC on March 8, 2020.

Now we are physically separated from one another in a time of a pandemic crisis, and now more than we knew at the time we must grow together even more closely to meet our current crises. The rapid global spread of COVID–19 forces us to recognize how interconnected we are in the physical world. It invokes in us the need to find new ways to bring comfort to one another, to cooperate with one another, and to overcome the ravages of disease and death. 

Forget the selfies and social media updates of everyone at their best, three-time New York Times best-selling author Nadia Bolz-Weber’s new podcast, The Confessional, invites guests to share stories about times they were at their worst. Guests talk honestly about what led to that moment, what they learned from it, and how they changed as a result. A former stand-up comic and a recovering alcoholic, Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran Pastor and the founder of House for All Sinners and Saints, in Denver, Colorado.

It is unnecessary for anybody to throw stones because of anybody’s race or ethnicity. It repulses me and is plain not Jesus-like. It is prideful and hateful.

Last week was about as intense as it gets. Caught between a merciless virus and the cessation of social activity, beneath the surface calm lies a persistent tension ready to erupt. The anxiety was underscored by the two main religious mythologies that drive segments of our culture, the Passover and the Crucifixion/Resurrection of Jesus.

Wise men and women know that there are times when you can’t go back the way you came.  So it was for the three magi from the East, who, having caught the vision of the Christ in Bethlehem, knew they needed to take another road home. 

Two United Church of Christ pastors are part of a group of black faith leaders calling on the Trump administration to provide better testing, treatment and health care for people of color during the coronavirus pandemic.

Enjoy a special conversation with Mirele Goldsmith (Jewish Earth Alliance), Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim (Mbororo environmental activist), Lyla June (Diné environmental scientist, doctoral student, educator, economist, community organizer, and musician), Hellen Mugo (Catholic Youth Network for Environmental Sustainability in Africa), Gopal Patel (Bhumi Project), and Lauren Van Ham (United Religions Initiative) moderated by Parliament Climate Director, Joshua Basofin.

Taking a cue from “The Day the Crayons Quit” by Drew Daywalt we can learn what it takes to get through anything together, when we see that everyone brings their gifts to every situation. And by remembering that when lots of things change, there are a few things that never change: GOD, LOVE, JOY, GOODNESS and laughter!

Franklyn Schaefer is a singer-songwriter, guitarist, arranger and composer. He published his first musical album in 2008 (Keep on Smiling) and has published two more albums and several single songs since.

In the Jewish, Christian, and Islam faith systems and traditions a personal Creator, Sustainer is not only the Ground of all being (GOAB), but a committed partner in its creation and sustaining, particularly to humankind, created to its image.
Unknowable only to experience in “His, Her, Its” actions with a purpose that, being the Alpha and the Omega, is the GOAB itself.
Basically it is up to us humans to unravel the mysteries and to deepen out our love and relationship with our Creator.

Will you join us in making a difference for children all over the world? Today, children are seriously undernourished when it comes to spirituality. They are often either taught dogma in Sunday School or secularism at home …

Traditional Christianity has missed the point of the Easter story.  The miracle on Easter wasn’t that Jesus was physically or spiritually raised to sit at God’s right hand until he could one day return to judge humanity.  The miracle was his followers recognizing that they could continue to proclaim the message of God’s Reign on this earth even once Jesus had been crucified.